


The Bloody Black Bastards

by Zoya1416



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Assassin's Guild, Boarding School, Decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1618109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sammie Vimes was promised a place in the Assassin's Guild School as soon as he was born. It's nearly time for him to start, and his father is beside himself.</p><p>This occurs at the same time as "Changing His Tune," in The Patrician's Baby series, but centers on the Vimes's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bloody Black Bastards

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Changing His Tune](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1617980) by [Zoya1416](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416). 



> All Pratchett's.

On Scoone Avenue an argument was being continued.

“Dammit Sybil, I won't do it. I can't. You know I hate the black bastards and all they stand for.”

Sibyl was a large woman with powerful arms exercised every day from lifting heavy swamp dragons. She normally reminded Sam of a warm, friendly sun around which he revolved happily, if one could imagine a universe where such a freakish thing occurred. She was his center, calling to him even when he was far away fighting crime. He adored her more than words could express.

Now those arms were crossed and she was scowling at him.  
“He's going, Sam. Havelock put down an admission request for him the day he was born. You've always known that.”

“Yeah, but that's just another way the black bastard has of getting at me. Give me things he knows I hate, like that stupid sedan chair. Which I'm so glad you had the idea of renting out, Sib. It was brilliant. More money for the Hospital, right?” He smiled in attempted conciliation. 

She was still glowering.

“You're embarrassing me, Samuel. All our class boards out our children. The girls at the Quirm School, the boys at the Assassin's. It's traditional.”

Not my traditions, he thought. But then I don't know all eight of my great-grandparents names—not sure of my grandfather's, really, not that I'd admit it to those long faced hee-haws we meet at every dreary party.

“Sibyl, I chase down thieves and thugs every day. And murderers, too, when we have those. It's what I do. Keeping Ankh-Morpork safe. I can't fathom for the life of me why you want our son to be educated by murderers, no matter how rich or prominent or well-connected they are.”

“It's the quality of the education which counts. It's simply not available at any other school on the Disc. And as far as actually becoming assassins, Havelock tells me that only about twenty percent even study the Black Syllabus. Many fewer pass it and are qualified, only about five a year.”

“Oh, that's fine, then. Only another five murderers to worry about. They kill people for money! Sibyl, I'm going to tell you one more time”—  
and then she moved against him, crushing him in her warm arms.

“Sam, if you really, really, really don't want this, then—we'll do what you think is best.  
Do you think you might consent to his being a day-boarder, then?”

“What's that?”

“A student who goes to school during the day but comes home at night. It's not done very often. Often only for the first one or two years, because there are so many evening and weekend activities and the studies are so much harder from the third year on. We had some in Quirm.”

“And they turned out just fine, didn't they?”

She frowned. “I'm not sure. I really don't keep up with them. There were only a couple.”

He was shocked. This was a woman who kept up with everyone who'd ever gone to the Quirm College for Young Ladies, he'd thought. She wrote long letters to women she'd last seen twenty-five years ago, commiserating about the problems of a child twenty years old, whom she'd never even met. For her to ignore or withdraw from a student because she wasn't there full time was unimaginable. 

There must be something magical about dormitories, he thought. All those nights sleeping together, listening to each other snore—listening to each other's problems, snubs, worries—triumphs—he did not want Sammie to become an Assassin, or ever think it might be acceptable. He thought very poorly of the aristocracy of Ankh-Morpork, but he thought even worse of Sammie being cut off from it. The boy wouldn't understand why he was shut out from his Scoone Avenue friends, especially as those friends grew into the city's leaders.

Sam had also gotten used to power—he didn't even cringe, much, when he was referred to as the Duke of Ankh-Morpork. He'd gotten used to privilege, to being invited to all the little parties he scorned. He wouldn't go back to Cockbill Avenue even if he could. But maybe he should take Sammie there, get some proportions into the boy's head. 

Vimes himself had been an Assassin's target for years, keeping up with the amounts of his contracts until the contract was taken off the table as being too disruptive to Ankh-Morpork.

“Let's try day-boarder, Sibyl. But I've got to put him straight about some things.”

Sam left the Watch House early in the afternoon the next day, startling everyone. He had to assure a worried Carrot that he was not ill, just taking some personal time. Since Vimes had never taken any personal time off in the last six years, the Watch still worried. Angua was appealed to, and refused to follow him.

“Oh, hi, Dad, Mum's not feeling sick, is she?”

Why did everyone in the city think his taking a little break heralded illness?

“No, she's fine. Come take a walk with me.”

The warm sun beat on their shoulders as they progressed—Sam had taught his son progressing as soon as he could walk steadily—from the great mansions of Scoone Avenue down to Kings' Way. Sammie automatically turned left, toward Pseudopolis Yard, but Vimes said, “No, we're going straight.”

They followed Prouts Avenue down past the Apothecary Garden and to Misbegot Bridge. Vimes patrolled these streets frequently, but he'd never shown them to his son. The street became narrower, and the steamy smell of the Ankh rose as they came to the bridge.

“Hold here a minute. I need to tell you some things.” Sam pulled out a cigar from the silver case Sibyl had given him, the one thing which had helped him stay sane during the terrible week he'd been thrown back in time and battled Carcer as well as destiny. He'd gotten home only to find Sibyl still struggling in difficult labor, raced nude covered in blood and mud to get Dr. Lawn for her. Then Sammie had been born and all was right. 

Sammie stopped obediently. 

“Sammie, you know that your Mother and I didn't meet until we fought the dragon, right?”

“Yes! I wish I'd been there to see it! I bet it was exciting!”  
One battle at a time, Vimes thought. Or maybe it was the same battle.

“Yes, well it was exciting, but very frightening. We were almost killed, would have been killed if your Mom's little dragon Errol hadn't come and lead the dragon off. That's when we found out the great dragon was a girl.”

He remembered Nobby and Colon. “But it's sodding enormous!” Then sideways glances at the sodding enormous dragon breeder and tried again. “Wide, egg-bearing hips. Statchooweske.”

“Well, anyway, your mother and I fell in love then, and married. It would never have happened without the dragon, because your mother was—is—extremely rich, and I was extremely poor. I didn't have a house of my own, didn't even have a room in a boarding house. I slept in my office in the Watch House—this was the old Watch House, before the dragon burned it down.”

He looked to see if Sammie was following him, then went on—“Anyway, I came from one of the poorest streets in the city. I'm going to take you down there today, but you need to stay next to me. The Shades are a dangerous area. Not just pickpockets and unlicensed thieves, but coshers and bludgers, not to mention people who would kidnap you. You have to stay right next to me. Don't even give money to the beggars. They may be working with the coshers to distract you so they could bash your head in.”

Sammie nodded, seriously, and the two crossed over to Treacle Mine Road. The city changed immediately, to the familiar narrow and twisting dirt lanes. They fended off beggars, and Seamstresses, who offered Sammie services Vimes was sure the boy didn't understand. 

(He was wrong. The legendary Seamstresses were a powerful attraction to the minds of eleven year old boys, who speculated endlessly about blond, buxom ladies offering to do—they weren't exactly sure what, but pretended they did. Sammie was shocked to discover that they might be blond, but out of a brassy bottle; dirty, with broken teeth, bad odor, and—scratching for body lice? He decided to keep this to himself.)

Stepping over piles of trash, then garbage, then—objects Sammie had only seen before they were flushed away.

“Dad! Is that poo? In the street?”

“Yes.”

“Why don't they fix their toilets?”

“They don't have any toilets. We're here now.”

They turned into the foul sty which was Cockbill Street. The stench of the Cattle Market blew over the familiar Ankh odor, in a combination even Vimes found nauseating. Sammie put a hand over his mouth and gulped several times. 

“It's an awful place, Dad!”

“Yes. Your grandmother lived here, in this house. You've seen her grave in Small Gods. I lived here until I joined the Watch."

Sammie was disgusted, still nauseated. “Can we go now?”

“Yes.”

As they stepped out of the narrow street, a woman screamed, and Vimes saw a Seamstress who'd been knocked down and robbed of her purse. He couldn't see any Agony Aunts, and the thief kicked the woman in the head to keep her down as he ran away.

Vimes automatically called, “Stop that man,” as he started to race. He looked back quickly to see if Sammie was following, and the youngster nodded. The thief was stupid enough to look back after a block, slowing his getaway, and Sammie burst ahead to reach him. Only when the boy put his hand on the man's shoulder did he realize he had none of a Watchman's gear. The man grinned, swung back an elbow, and Sammie doubled up. But by then Vimes was swinging his baton.

They marched the culprit back to Pseudopolis Yard, leaving him to be processed.

After the pair got home, cleaned up, and eaten, Sammie said, “why did you take me down there today, Dad? I mean today instead of any other day?”

Vimes looked at Sybil, and she nodded.

“Your mother and I have been talking about school next year. You know you're supposed to go to the Assassin's Guild.”

“Yes! It will be great! All those knives and things!”

“Sammie, do you know what Assassins do?”

“Yes, they kill bad guys!”

“No, Sammie, they kill anyone they've been paid for. Whether they're bad or good.”

“But how do they know who to kill? Who tells them?”

“The Guild. When a person wants to kill someone, he buys a contract, and the Guild contracts to do it. The customer pays the Guild the money. When the contract has been fulfilled—when the person is dead—the Guild pays the assassin. The assassin doesn't care who he kills, and he'll do it again as many times as he wants to.”

Sammie was puzzled and quiet a minute.

“Sammie, I go to work every day to uphold the law, and punish those who break it. We chased a man today who robbed and kicked a woman, and we'll punish him for it. But if he'd been an Assassin, and had a contract to kill her, we couldn't have done anything. We couldn't have arrested him or taken him to jail. It's LEGAL to kill people if you've paid for it.

“That's why I—I don't want you to go to the Assassin's Guild. But your mother thinks it's a good school because they have a lot of books and teach math, science, languages, sports, as well as, as, as what they call the Black Syllabus. That's the part where you learn to kill people.”

Sammie looked at him. “I don't want to kill people. I think it would be cool to learn how to use knives and things, but not to really hurt someone. For defense if I had to protect somebody. Like Mum.”

“That's why we, your Mum and I, want you to go"—Vimes choked, but continued grimly, "we want you to go to the school as a day-boarder for the first two years. So you can come home and tell us about the school, how it's going, how—” 

Sibyl filled in smoothly. “We want you to get a good education. We also don't want you to be teased or pestered by older students, and get a chance to come home and see us every day.”

Sammie was nodding with her, still confused, and Vimes decided to go for the kill, metaphorically speaking.

“Sammie, do you know I've had an Assassin's contract on me for years?”

The boy went pale. “Somebody wants to kill you—why—who? You haven't done anything wrong.”

“But I upset a lot of people. There are many, many people in Ankh-Morpork who think that a poor boy from the streets where poo is in the gutters shouldn't be so rich, and have so much power and money. Which I wouldn't have had without marrying your Mother.”

“Maybe I should stay home and protect her.”

“Nobody wants to hurt her, son. Just me.” 

“Why can't you find out who it is and kill them first? I would.”

“Doesn't work that way. Anyway, the price on my head got higher and higher, over a million dollars”—

The boy's eyes were huge—“and now nobody is going to kill me, because the Guild said, forget it, let him live, because Ankh-Morpork will work better if he's still alive, the bloody bastard. So don't worry about me.”

Sybil cut in again, always a calming effect.

“We've talked about what we don't want you to do, Sammie, but what DO you want to do? When you finish school? And you might not know now; you've got plenty of time to decide.”

Unless you live on Cockbill Street, Vimes thought, where you don't have any time at all to think, just grab the first thing you could do as soon as you were big enough, to support yourself and your mother. By eight you go out as a mudlark, finding pieces of coal or metal ships had dropped at the dock. Sometimes you'd found washers or rivets, old pieces of rope, or canvas.

You carried bundles on the dock which weighed more than you did, scraped sharp barnacles off boats, worked at the Cattle Renderers picking up pieces of gristle and bone which had fallen into the dirt and dung and sawdust shavings, picked off the bits of meat to bring home, or sold them to Dibbler to make his terrible sausages. And, yes, begged at the Cheesemongers for any work you could do to get a bite of cheese— 

The best memories of those early years were the time he'd been paid in fresh oranges for taking a big square of canvas to a Klatchian vessel. Another time he'd gotten an whole egg a day for a week for cleaning out very dirty Heggler's carts. He'd had enough pennies then for a pound of flour and a half-pint of raspberries. His mother made tuppenny upright jam dodgers, and sold most of them, but he still remembered the tart, sweet taste.

— Finally you got to be seventeen and join the Watch for a steady job, uniform, a place to be a man and do a proud job. Even though you started drinking soon thereafter, because you saw all the poor getting squashed by the rich, and weren't able to help them—not relevant here.

“I might want to be a doctor,” Sammie said, and Vimes breathed out. Life, not death, life, was what his son was choosing today, and pray all the gods he'd never change his mind, despite all the clever knives the bloody black bastards offered him.


End file.
